The Main Line of Public Works, a visionary master transportation plan for Pennsylvania approved by the state legislature in 1826, originally called for a canal running westward from Philadelphia to the Susquehanna River.  However, when that proved to be impractical, it was replaced by an 82-mile railroad to be built from Philadelphia to Columbia on the Susquehanna River 30 miles below Harrisburg.  Starting from Broad and Vines streets, the railroad crossed the Schuylkill River on a predecessor bridge to CSX’s appropriately named Columbia Bridge.  An inclined plane was then used to lift the railroad 196 feet to the top of the Belmont Plateau in what is now Fairmount Park.   In Lower Merion Township the route followed the current location of Montgomery Avenue skirting the southwest edge of Merion Meeting.  At its western terminus in Columbia a second inclined plane was used to bring the railroad down to river level.

When opened in 1836 the railroad was initially operated as a toll turnpike with private cars pulled by horses and supplemented by stationary steam engines using cables to haul the cars up or lower them down the two inclined planes.  Railroad owned locomotives were soon introduced and for a while ran interspersed with horse-drawn traffic.  Horses were finally banned from the route in 1844.  The Montgomery Avenue routing was abandoned in 1850 when the railroad completed a new routing from West Philadelphia through Overbrook to Ardmore, thus bypassing the labor-intensive Belmont Plane.

The short section of track seen at the entrance of the drive leading to the meeting house contains actual stone sleepers used in the original railroad.  However, the rail resting on top is modern steel T-rail.  Horse drawn railroads often used wooden rails topped by an iron strap.  However, as steam locomotives pulling heavier cars were introduced, railroads switched to a variety of rolled iron rails.

Researched and written by J. Dawson, 2019